Honor Courage and Commitment
These words weren't made for me, they were made to keep me quiet
Author’s Note
The following journal entry is reproduced exactly as it was written in February 2006, with minor clarifications and names changed. I was eighteen and believed I had just secured my future.
At the time, I thought I was documenting triumph. A scholarship. A full ride. Proof that the risky sacrifice I made months earlier had paid off. What I did not understand was how much fear was folded into that celebration. I was terrified of failing, terrified of being weak, desperate to outrun the wreckage of heartbreak. Every decision felt like freedom. None of them were.
The military and the scholarship were not just opportunity. They were absolution. They allowed me to leave everything behind without having to face what I had broken. I could start again, as I had done so many times before, shedding context, history, and consequence in favor of forward motion.
I am leaving this entry intact because it captures the moment I believed I had broken a cycle, when in reality I had simply found a more socially acceptable way to continue one. The direction changed. The pattern did not.
My Journal
February 2006, Age 18
I am amazed at what I received last night. July 26, 2005 was the day I made a risky sacrifice in hopes of securing something in return, and today was the day my hopes were fulfilled. A $150,000 scholarship. My mom didn't want me to enlist. She said there was no guarantee for college. But I told her I could apply for a scholarship, and I did, and I got it. What do you do with that much money? I mean, it really is a full ride, isn't it?
I just hope I get into University of San Diego. But if I won this scholarship, how could I not get in?
I won the scholarship. Oh my God.
I really was meant for something big, and whoever is in control sure wants to help things along and make everything easier for me. I had no idea how I was going to pay for college, but this, this solves that. I can't comprehend how important this is. Nothing to worry about. Winning this was a thousand times better than sex. That's the truth. I hope I'll enjoy it all.
Oh, and I hope Sgt. A comes to JROTC class tomorrow to congratulate me and everything. Why does that man have to be married? He’s the type I need to find and hold onto. Although I’m certainly in no hurry and not even that interested. I’m content with me and my own lot. Finally.
After everything I’ve gone through with men, boys. I think I could swear them off. Especially Vincent. Always Vincent.
I still can’t believe I fell for it again. And look where it got me.
Single, again.
Now, I am going to get some rest and enjoy the luxury of being able to sleep in an hour. Too bad it wasn’t a late start today at school. I could’ve missed more government class. Oh well.
*** Oh yeah, and I’m being bullied in government class about joining the military by “liberal” kids. So annoying. They don’t understand. Someday, they will.
Postscript
For years I told this story as the moment everything turned. The scholarship. The full ride. Proof I was destined for something bigger than the wreckage behind me.
I enlisted with parental consent of my mother at seventeen and a half. What I couldn’t say then is that I wasn’t joining out of choice. I was joining out of heartbreak and trying to make myself into something unbreakable, something that could prove I was better than what I had been made to believe about myself. She didn’t come from a background where college was guaranteed. Her mother spent her youth as a hairdresser in a domestic violence relationship. It was a recession.
But she was told she needed college to survive, to get ahead, to break a cycle. She would be the first woman in her family to pursue higher education. The scholarship solved that. But she wasn’t just solving tuition. She was solving everything she didn’t have language for yet. The fear. The worthlessness. The desperate hope that if she just performed hard enough, she would finally become someone who couldn’t be broken. The cost of that solution would take twenty years to calculate.
